Risk and compliance

Foreign government involvement

Also called foreign involvement in regional center program.

Foreign government involvement is what 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(H)(ii)(II) forbids: no agency, official or representative of a foreign government entity may provide capital to, or be directly or indirectly involved with the ownership or administration of, a regional center, a new commercial enterprise or a job-creating entity.

What it decides

There is one exception and it is drawn tight. A foreign or domestic investment fund or other investment vehicle wholly or partly owned, directly or indirectly, by a bona fide foreign sovereign wealth fund or by a foreign state-owned enterprise otherwise permitted to do business in the United States may hold ownership in, but never administer, a job-creating entity, and only one that is not an affiliated job-creating entity. So ownership yes, administration never, and nothing at all at the regional center or new commercial enterprise level. Congress told DHS to write implementing regulations within 270 days of 15 March 2022 and that never happened: no final rule implements the subclause, and the proposed rule that would implement the Act was published only on 2 July 2026, with comments closing 31 August 2026. Until then the bar runs on the attestations collected on Form I-956H and on the suspension or termination power in the same subparagraph.

Governed by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(H)(ii)(II) for the bar and its sovereign wealth fund exception, (ii)(III) for the 270 day rulemaking direction, and (iv) for the suspension or termination that follows knowingly involving a prohibited party. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6, Part G, Chapter 4, current as of 5 August 2026, restates the bar and renders the exception as ownership of an unaffiliated job-creating entity. The uscis.gov Form I-956H page, last reviewed 5 June 2026, is the filing that carries the attestation. The absence of a regulation was checked against the Federal Register API on 5 August 2026: the only DHS rulemaking implementing the Act is the proposed rule of 2 July 2026, RIN 1615-AC94, document 2026-13392, still open for comment, so nothing in this entry rests on a rule that exists.

Related terms

Persons involved with a regional centerA person involved with a regional center, a new commercial enterprise or an affiliated job-creating entity is anyone who holds substantive authority, directly or indirectly, over the pooling, investment, release or use of EB-5 money, and 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(H) makes that definition decide whose record can disqualify the whole project.
Affiliated job-creating entityA job-creating entity in the regional center program that is controlled, managed or owned by any of the people involved with the regional center or the new commercial enterprise, those people being the ones who hold substantive authority, directly or indirectly, over the investors' money.
Job-creating entityA job-creating entity, or JCE, is the United States business in a regional center EB-5 deal that receives the investment capital, either straight from the investors or through the new commercial enterprise, and is responsible for creating the ten full-time jobs each investor's petition must count.
Regional centerA regional center is an economic unit, public or private, that USCIS has designated to sponsor pooled EB-5 investment within a defined, contiguous and limited geographic area, and it is the only route on which a petition may count indirect and induced jobs.
Form I-956HForm I-956H, Bona Fides of Persons Involved with Regional Center Program, is the background attestation that each person involved with a regional center, a new commercial enterprise or an affiliated job-creating entity must complete and file as a distinct submission alongside Form I-956 or Form I-956F.

Checked against primary sources on 10 August 2026. Back to the glossary